Precision Agriculture and Governing Nature

该奖项支持一个博士论文研究项目，该项目对精准农业进行了详细研究，这是一种数字媒介的农业方法。这种做法引起了迅速增长的社会和环境关切；它有望在未来几年塑造围绕气候变化、粮食安全以及数字技术和大数据对政治和文化影响的对话。精准农业有可能减轻农业对环境的影响，同时有助于为不断增长的世界人口增加粮食产量。然而，这可能会加速农场整合和自动化的进程，从而引发对劳动和经济不平等的严重担忧。现有的关于精准农业的学术工作往往侧重于技术问题，而排除了本研究所关注的社会文化和环境问题。因此，拟议的研究创造并推进了有关这种转变的社会、文化、政治和环境推论的知识，这些知识有助于塑造和突出精准农业的可能性和后果。它将为科学和人文社区提供新的相关数据和观点，同时参与有关技术、文化和环境的更大的对话。该项目的主要目标是促进对精准农业的理解，精准农业是一种利用数字传感和大数据分析的力量来评估和定制作物管理、牲畜和农场运营的农业方法。它试图确定精准农业是如何以及为什么发展起来的，以及它可能产生的后果。总体目标是产生一个以经验为基础的精准农业历史，将话语和历史分析与美国两个不同的农业地区，印第安纳州和纽约州的民族志田野调查相结合。研究者将使用多种方法，包括参与观察、访谈、档案研究和话语分析。研究数据将在农场、企业、大学和投资于这种方法的贸易组织中收集。他将对精准农业进行细致而批判性的描述，展示精准农业是如何被设计、使用和理解的；反过来，该账户将有助于促进对数字技术在粮食和农业系统中的驱动因素和后果的理解。该研究将通过将其发现纳入更大的设计，政策和文化讨论中，涉及数字技术，食品系统，自动化和生态，从而为更广泛的社会目标做出贡献。

This award supports a doctoral dissertation research project that undertakes a detailed study of precision agriculture, a digitally mediated approach to farming. That approach is of rapidly growing social and environmental concern; it promises to shape conversations around climate change, food security, and the political and cultural effects of digital technology and big data in years to come. Precision agriculture has the potential to mitigate the environmental effects of farming while helping to increase food production for a growing world population. However, it will likely accelerate the processes of farm consolidation and automation, raising serious concerns regarding labor and economic inequality. Existing scholarly work on precision agriculture tends to focus on technical problems to the exclusion of the socio-cultural and environmental issues this study focuses on. The proposed research therefore creates and advances knowledge regarding the social, cultural, political, and environmental corollaries of this transformation, knowledge that helps shape and highlight the possibilities and consequences of precision agriculture. It will contribute new data and perspectives of relevance to both the scientific and humanities communities while participating in larger conversations about technology, culture, and the environment. The primary objective of this project is to advance understanding of precision agriculture, an approach to farming leveraging the power of digital sensing and big data analytics to evaluate and customize crop management, livestock, and farm operations in extreme detail. It seeks to determine how and why precision agriculture developed, and what consequences is it likely to have. The overarching goal is to produce an empirically grounded history of precision agriculture that pairs discursive and historical analysis with ethnographic fieldwork in two distinct agricultural regions of the United States, Indiana and New York. The researcher will use multiple methods including participant observation, interviews, archival research and discourse analysis. Research data will be gathered at farms, businesses, universities and trade organizations invested in this approach. He will generate a granular and critically-informed account of precision agriculture that shows how precision agriculture is being designed, used, and understood; the account will, in turn, serve to advance understanding of the drivers and consequences of digital technology in food and farming systems. The research will contribute to broader social goals by folding its findings into larger design, policy, and cultural discussions regarding digital technology, food systems, automation, and ecology.